Summer's Coming

I spent today doing a few important things. I cleared out the gardens-- I kind of have two of them. One is back on the back fence and usually has sunny flowers & my cool green buddha meditation statue. The other is on the far right fence and has herbs and weeds in it, usually. Sometimes more weeds than herbs (and not that kind of weed, thank you.) The rosemary I planted last year has totally taken over one corner & it looks pretty & is fragrant so in spite of my earlier plan to let the bed go back to just grass I planted marjoram, basil & greek oregano in there today. There is a neighbor guy that's been selling herbs in his front yard during the week & I want to stop there and get some mint from him. I love mint.

Then I cleared the back bed out and scattered two cans of those "wildflower mixes" you can buy. Hot colors & cold colors all mixed together. I've tried those mixes before & had them totally not work so I hope this time it does. I want a wild bed full of wildflowers this year. The cultivated ones from the past just haven't done as much for me.

I also cleared out the someday-a-koi pond. Sean has a bad habit of dropping handfulls of mud (and rocks & other junk)in there so it's never been actually established yet as a real ecosystem. Andrew wanted to pull it up and level it-- the handymen didn't quite get the level right. And he got frustrated and quit just before naptime so it's not done yet.

But establishing the summer flower/herb beds feels really good. It feels like summer's really & truly on its way. And I really and truly need it.

Koi-less koi pond

It's on its way. It's the pond I've been wanting for a long time. I want a bunch of fat, greedy fish struggling for dominance & popcorn. If you dig it, will they come?

Just across the sidewalk (and just peeking out of the right hand side of the picture) is my two years ago attempt at having a water feature in the back yard. Under the lip of the cobalt blue foundtain lives an old toad. I say old because he's been there about two years--that's gotta be old for a toad. Once I lifted the lid up and there was a much larger toad in there with him. I figure that was his lady friend and they had the Toad equivalent of the "baum chicka wa wa" music going on so I left them alone. I forget he's there sometimes when I'm fiddling with the fountain mechanisms and he moves & startles me. But he is quite happy there, I think.

But on the pond front, so far, so good. The floaty flowers on the water are right now just placeholders for the plants that are dropped into the water which will hopefully grow in a couple of weeks. Then we can drop some fishies in there for the racoons to enjoy. (Did I tell you there was a racoon in our tree two days ago? He kept covering his ears with his paws. He might have had a hangover and we were, technically, in his bedroom.)

This is what I've been doing with my spring break thus far. And procrastinating on the taxes. Maybe I'll plant the front garden today if I can drag myself away from Facebook long enough.

I like my angel,* and my little white solar light globe which catches the sun & sparkles off the water. There's a little wire bench for gazing at the koi (when they magic themselves in there) that you can't see. There are a few more improvements I'm thinking of making, but I'm happy with it as it is right now. I do wish, as I think everyone who ever makes one of these ponds wishes, that it was larger. One day I'll have a larger pond. It's something to hope for.

Ugly-sexy fish & an angel statue. What more could you want?


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*I'm not normally much for the cutesy angel statues with their fat putti cheeks & all but I like this one. And she reminds me more of a tree fairy or something. She's holding a brass-looking bird in her hands, by the way, and there's a very pretty blue bird feeder just overhead, so it looks very nice IRL.